Memory Boxes: My little black book led to Joe Namath

It may be filled with numbers, but my little black book is really a collection of stories.

I wrote those stories during my stint as a sports writer at The Times in the mid-1980s, and my black book of phone numbers made them all possible.

It’s the prototypical black book. Black (duh!). Soft, plastic cover. Three inches by six inches and about a quarter-inch thick. Wire bound. Black tabs with two letters of the alphabet on each. The simple, yet informative words “Telephone” and “Address” stamped in silver foil on the front cover, with “Guilford G670” on the back.

The book is an anachronistic and delectable reminder of days long gone, its pages containing factoids and tidbits now approaching their 30th birthday. To wit: Car loan rates at the Beaver County Times Federal Credit Union were 12 percent, and the dividend on shares paid you 7 percent. A helpful list of toll-free numbers reminded you that Air Florida, Eastern Airlines, Ozark, Pan Am, People Express and TWA used to fly the friendly skies; while Howard Johnson, Red Carpet and Roadway Inns of America offered lodging; and Greyhound and Sears rented cars.

But much tastier than those useless nuggets are the stories that leap off the pages as I thumb through the book and its entries. Sandwiched between ABC Sports, which lives on, and Mickey Zernich, who died a couple years ago, my favorite entry sits about halfway through the book in the Ns. That’s ironic, because this guy never did anything halfway. I’m talking about arguably Beaver County’s most well-known athlete/celebrity/legend: Joe Namath. Sure, it’s an old phone number that no longer works (I tried it), but there it is: 305-364-2021.

I first dialed those 10 digits in 1985, shortly after Namath was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame and I had to write about his reaction. For me, the assignment included more than a tinge of hero-worship because Namath had always been my favorite player.

So as I punched those numbers on the phone, my heart pounded and my fingers quivered. When a voice on the other end answered, I was talking to Joe Namath, my boyhood idol and one of the most electrifying sports celebrities ever. The interview lasted that night for perhaps 45 minutes, and he was polite, charming and insightful, with one particular moment of hilarity. As for me, I shuttled back and forth from semi-serious journalist to giddy fan. Yes, I was doing my job, but hey, he was Joe Namath.

As the interview progressed, I settled into a rhythm and began to savor the moments. Then lightning literally struck, followed by a gigantic clap of thunder that shook the newspaper’s building. At my desk, the lights flickered, then went out, and the phone went dead. So there I sat, my most prized interview abruptly terminated.

An interminable 30 seconds or so of panic later, the power came back on, and I began frantically dialing Namath’s 10 digits one more time, fearful that he would consider the interview over and not pick up the phone again. But he didn’t just answer it; he answered and continued talking as if the whole phone-line-went-dead thing never happened. My mind sputtered to compute: Did he really not notice that we got cut off? Did my line go dead and his didn’t? What do I do, what do I say? Faced with these burning questions, I managed to utter a few “uh-huhs” in agreement with whatever he was saying.

At that point, he said, “What do you mean ‘uh-huh’? What the heck just happened?”

My cover blown, I came clean with the power outage story and laughed nervously at his masterful ploy. He chuckled, too, and prompted me for the next question. A few days later, The Times ran the Namath interview story, and later in the year I wrote several more when covering his induction ceremony and his debut as a broadcaster for ABC’s "Monday Night Football."

Nearly 30 years have passed since I wrote those stories, but I’ll never forget them or the night I talked to Joe Namath, thanks to my little black book of numbers.

If you have a personal memento that you would like Tim Wesley to feature in this column, email a photo and a brief description of its personal significance to Community Editor Tom Bickert at Tbickert@timesonline.com. Please include a phone number.

If you have a personal memento that you would like Tim Wesley to feature in this column, email a photo and a brief description of its personal significance to Community Editor Tom Bickert at Tbickert@timesonline.com. Please include a phone number.

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